Oklahoma Digital Prairie is your entrance to the state collection of online services and resources.
The areas found here include documents, photographs, reports, pamphlets, posters, maps, audio/visual content and online research databases.

Research & Discovery Resources

ODL uses federal library funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to provide all Oklahomans access to these platforms for learning and research. Britannica School and EBSCO are provided at no additional charge to schools, libraries, and academic institutions across the state. These research tools provide Oklahomans with millions of full-text magazine and peer-reviewed journal articles, newspaper articles, health information, primary sources, educational tools for students and teachers, and much more.

State Collections

Oklahoma Digital Prairie provides visitors unique digital content spanning more than 100 years of rich, vibrant history from the 46th State. The resource areas found here include documents, photographs, newspapers, reports, pamphlets, posters, maps and audio/visual content. Content ranges from the late 1800s to the present day. Some collections are solely attributed to the work of librarians, archivists and content managers at the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Others, such as the collections providing citizens access to digitized state government publications and forms (Documents.OK.Gov and Forms.Ok.Gov), are joint projects between ODL, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, and the individual state agencies contributing publications and documents.

The historical content is mainly obtained from digitizing materials in the archives and documents divisions of the Department of Libraries. Careful consideration has gone into the selection of each and every item for these collections. The criteria for selection were particularly focused on a) materials difficult to access due to their rarity, b) materials with broad interdisciplinary application, and c) materials that are at a risk from a preservation viewpoint.

ODL also maintains custom searches such as SoonerSearch and Archive-It for access to information across all Oklahoma state agencies' websites past and present.

Viewing Tools

The Digital Prairie Collections utilize the CONTENTdm digital collection management software to organize and present content. CONTENTdm allows for the virtual recreation of hierarchical materials online, making it possible to read through a book or a series of letters on screen as you would with the physical copy in hand. Another key feature of CONTENTdm's Document Viewer is its ability to display page images and full-text transcripts side by side; this vastly simplifies the process of reading 19th-century penmanship while still allowing the reader to appreciate the style and format of the original writing. Full-text searching capabilities of materials with accompanying transcripts is provided. CONTENTdm has been optimized for use in all major browsers.